Benchmarking your code
Benchmarking your code is very important since it allows you to pinpoint bottlenecks in your application and allows you to improve the overall performance of your software as well as learning which techniques are more taxing than others.
For this example we are going to be using the Stopwatch class. This class will enable us to see how many milliseconds it required for our code to be executed so we can compare different methods or techniques.
As an example, the code below checks the performance difference of a try/catch block in a loop vs the performance when not using one. Keep in mind that try/catch blocks are not that performance heavy if they don’t actually catch something but the performance gets hit a lot in cases a lot of exceptions are being thrown.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 | Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch(); int test; //test 1 sw.Start(); test = 0; for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++) { test = i; } Console.WriteLine(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); // 7644 sw.Reset(); //test 2 sw.Start(); test = 0; for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++) { try { test = i; } catch { } } Console.WriteLine(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); // 8429 sw.Reset(); |
For even better results I would advise running each test 3 to 5 times and simply calculating the average time of execution.
Move JavaScript files to footer in WordPress
Loading excessive JavaScript files in the header will usually slow down your website. This happens because while JavaScript files are loading the browser stops all the other operations till those files have been processed.
An easily solution to remedy that is to move all the .js files in the footer so they will start to load after all the graphical elements of the website have been loaded. In order to do this, open your theme’s functions.php file an place the following code at the bottom.
1 2 3 4 5 6 | remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_print_scripts'); remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_print_head_scripts', 9); remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 1); add_action('wp_footer', 'wp_print_scripts', 5); add_action('wp_footer', 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 5); add_action('wp_footer', 'wp_print_head_scripts', 5); |
Note: Keep in mind that in some cases some plugins might rely on specific JavaScript files to be loaded in the header, so make sure to check that everything is working properly (no errors in the java console) after moving all the files in the footer.
Posted in WordPress.
Tagged javascript, WordPress
Send email using C#
Sending emails using C# is fairly easy. You require the host or the IP of an SMTP server that the email will be send through and a username/password if that server requires credentials.
For this example I will be providing a way to send emails using the Gmail SMTP server.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 | // This might not be required if the SMTP server you are sending the email through does not require credentials. NetworkCredential credentials = new NetworkCredential("your username", "your password"); // The email address that will show where the email came from. // The email address that will receive the email. using (MailMessage mail = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress)) { // If port 587 fails you might want to try 465 instead. The port might differ if you choose to use another SMTP server. SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient("smtp.gmail.com", 587); client.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network; client.EnableSsl = true; client.Credentials = credentials; client.Timeout = 10000; // Timeout set to 10 seconds. The default is 100,000 (100 seconds). mail.ReplyTo = fromAddress; mail.Subject = "The subject"; // The subject of the email. mail.Body = "The content of the email"; // The content of the email. client.Send(mail); // Send the email. } |
Posted in C#.
Tagged C#, csharp, email, MailAddress, MailMessage, NetworkCredential, SmtpClient, snippet, winforms
Move borderless form using mouse
Forms that have their FormBorderStyle set to None cannot be moved using the mouse by default. In order to achieve this functionally we can use the ReleaseCapture and SendMessage Windows functions.
Simply place the following code in your borderless form class.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | const int HTCAPTION = 0x2; const int WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = 0xA1; [DllImportAttribute("user32.dll")] public static extern int SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, int wParam, int lParam); [DllImportAttribute("user32.dll")] public static extern bool ReleaseCapture(); private void form1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Left) { ReleaseCapture(); SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, 0); } } |
Don’t forget to assign your form’s MouseDown event to the form1_MouseDown method !
Keep in mind that you could handle another control’s MouseDown event (a good example would be a MenuStrip control) instead of the form’s one, making your form moveable only when the user clicks and drags that specific control.
Posted in C#.
Tagged C#, csharp, FormBorderStyle, HT_CAPTION, ReleaseCapture, snippet, winforms, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN
Minimize a form without border using the taskbar
By default borderless forms are not designed to be minimized, which means when the form’s FormBorderStyle property is set to None you will notice that clicking the application box in taskbar does not minimize the form.
This can be fixed by overriding CreateParams and adding the WS_MINIMIZEBOX style to the Window and CS_DBLCLKS to the Window class styles.
Simply place the following code inside your Form’s class which you want to enable the minimize functionality using the taskbar.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | const int WS_MINIMIZEBOX = 0x20000; const int CS_DBLCLKS = 0x8; protected override CreateParams CreateParams { get { CreateParams cp = base.CreateParams; cp.Style |= WS_MINIMIZEBOX; cp.ClassStyle |= CS_DBLCLKS; return cp; } } |
Posted in C#.
Tagged C#, CS_DBLCLKS, csharp, FormBorderStyle, snippet, winforms, WS_MINIMIZEBOX
